Apple Music has finally revealed how much it pays the artists on average. The Wall Street Journal first reported that Apple on Friday sent a letter to artists disclosing it pays a penny per stream — roughly double the amount paid by its rival Spotify. Posted in full by 9to5Mac, the letter says that Apple Music’s payment rate for artists and labels on average is a penny per stream. The letter was posted by the company on its artist dashboard and was sent to labels and publishers.
Apple’s music streaming service is trying hard to advertise itself and gain a nice PR. The new announcement of an average penny-per-stream rate seems a good PR win for Apple Music, as it is very simple and the streaming service’s rival Spotify hates talking about its per-stream payments. Spotify on average pays about one-third to a one-half penny per stream, but on a larger scale, it generates more streams because of its larger user base. On the other hand, Apple’s payments come only from its monthly subscription revenue from users, which is about half of Spotify.
Apple Music Pays Artists $0.01 Per Stream on Average
Like said before, the world’s largest music streaming service — Spotify — pays roughly half the amount Apple Music pays per stream on average. Bu the total revenue accumulated is more on Spotify because of its large user base. However, Apple Music, on the other hand, has announced to pay almost double the amount per stream and it is expected to encourage artists to upload more of their content on the streaming service.
Speaking of numbers, Apple’s letter claims to pay 52% of all its subscription revenue from Apple Music to the record labels. Spotify, on the other hand, is reported to pay 50% to 53% of its revenue, which is generated from monthly subscriptions as well as an ad-supported free tier. Apple doesn’t reveal its subscriber number, but it said that the company’s user base in 2019 crossed 60 million. However, Spotify has a total of 345 million active users, out of which 155 million are paid subscribers.
